What do January and Cub Scouting have in common? PINEWOOD DERBY!
Let me explain briefly what the pinewood derby is. Every year cub scouts (boys from 1st-5th grade) work with their families transforming a small block of pine wood into a car. The car kits come only with the block of wood, 4 wheels, and 4 nails. The design process is all on the boy. The rules are simple. You can make any design you want as long as you use the wheels that came with the car and your finished car weighs no more than 5 ounces.
Last weekend we got Jordan’s car kit and sat down to figure out what he wanted to make. At first he said he wanted to make it into a truck. When he heard two of his friends say the same thing, he sat down and drew a boat design. We traced the drawing he had done onto his block of wood and Chris and some other Dads cut it out.
The car was then sanded, painted, the wheels put on, and weights added. In addition to the weights we used some graphite on the wheels to make them screaming fast. Jordan’s “boat” weighed in at 4.95 ounces and was registered into competition with 15 of his friends.
The race took place on a metal four lane track. Each boys car would race once on each lane. The times were recorded and then an average time was determined. The fastest three cars would win a trophy and the fastest three boys in each den (age group) would win a medal.
Here is a video of one of Jordan’s races. He is the white boat in the lane closest to the camera. The race only last 3 seconds so you have to watch close!
After all was said and done, Jordan did great!! He got first place in his den and second place overall! This was his first every trophy and its all he can talk about. We are all looking forward to next January and brining home first place.
Price of the Car kit = $4.00
Price of all other supplies = $25.00 (paint, weights, graphite)
Price of seeing Jordan racing his car = PRICELESS!!
